"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her"

- William Wordsworth

Charles Spurgeon's wife was sickly, and it distressed her when she could not be with her husband. One gloomy day, as night drew on, she lay alone in her bedroom asking God why she must be sick in bed when she longed to be helping him. Then something happened...Suddenly, she heard a soft, sweet sound, like the trill of a robin by the window. 'Surely,' she said, 'no bird can be singing at the window at this time of the year and night.' Presently she found the sound came from an oak log that was burning on the hearth. Then she said: 'The fire is bringing out the imprisoned music from the inmost heart of the old oak.'"And just like P.H Spurgeon, when the fiery trials surround us, we will sing out the most beautiful praise. The song of our lives will pour out of our hearts to reach our heavenly father, the only one who can truly save us in our time of need. There in the fire will he purify us like the most precious gold and carefully mould us into his likeness. We can trust him, because his love is deeper than our souls' knowledge.

Monday, 11 March 2013

He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.

Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship -- camaraderie -- usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely.

Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death -- that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.